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New Player, class choice assistance.

Greetings.

I have just purchased the Mithril Edition of the LotRO. I am set to make a Dwarven toon as a friend has made a Elf (although why I have no idea the pointy ears are only good for getting in the way of my axe). I think we can work through our racial differences and achieve much together, but due to the pointy ears jumping in feet first and creating a hunter class toon I am left with the decision of what class I will go that will cover up his shortfalls and basically keep the little laddie breathing.
(please not that does not mean I intend to like his wounds and slap healing spells on him every two seconds, I'd prefer it if my damage was enough to keep mobs focused on me since we dwarves are built of sterner stuff).

I have played MMORPG games in the past and I actually had a elf hunter on WoW (glad to say I'm 7 years sober) and I have kind of always gone for a class that's a bit of a jack of all trades so I can DPS and have fun at range etc, this time though I've decided I definitely want to do a bit more of the centre of the foray kind of playing. Tanking / high DPS kinda thing.

So if anyone out there has any ideas on what class would be good for a new player who can hit hard and take a beating then your advice is welcome, just don't tell the elf!

For a dwarf, I'd recommend champion (high melee aoe dps) or guardian (heavy tank). Either works well with what you described, and a champ could probably keep the mobs off the hunter as long as the hunter is careful. That said, a guardian could do this easily with a huge array of threat building skills.

Event organiser of Bricks and Mordor on Landroval (ex-Nimrodel).
Creep raids 'suicidal monster mob' 1pm est Mondays and Tuesdays on Landroval!
If you're interested in a social and softcore raiding kin send me a mail on Navalgar.

Champion sounds closest to what you want. Out of the three classes listed so far, they're the only class that's actually considered to be a DPS class. They do also have an off-tank line, if you're interested in that type of thing. You won't really be able to do both tanking and DPSing to the max with just one toon: guards are great tanks but not so great on DPS, and champs as I mentioned are great DPS but only have an off-tank line.

In your situation, duoing with a hunter, you should be able to hold aggro with just a champ. You won't need to officially "tank" but you will have aggro, unless he starts shooting the mob long before you get to it. The guard will definitely hold aggro even if the hunter has an itchy trigger finger, but the DPS will be slower.

While there is much honor gained from those taking upon themselves the duty of guardian I get the feeling that you will become a great champion, one worthy of song!

Building your defensive side will aid in shielding your companion but still allow the slicing of enemies into kabod-sized bits. Much of middle earth will fear your presence, though for the deeper and darker regions of Middle Earth, may you befriend a minstrel, rune-keeper, or lore-master to aid you two.

Go for the champion, I'd say. My main is a dwarf champion and I like it a lot. Another reason to go that route could be that you won't have much opportunities to tank as long as you travel through middle-earth with your friend alone. To the amount that you have to tank in the open world, a champ's ability to do so will suffice. And then, I've heard players complain, dealing damage with a guardian can turn out to be a bit laborious. With a champ on the other hand, you and your elfish hunter fellow will deal damage like stink. In most cases, there won't be any need for any of you to save the other one from certain death. Most enemies you'll encounter will simply go down in a rain of arrows and a storm of axe. (No need to say, hopefully, that the axe is mandatory for a dwarf champion.)

As a sidenote: You should prepare, though, to run a lot in combat. I've duoed with a rune-keeper once and combat usually went like this: We see an enemy, me runs towards said foe, the rune-keeper opens with a massive burst of damage, me and the unlucky foe run back to the rune-keeper, who claimed the enemy's attention. I'd guess, you'll encounter situations similar to that one if you travel with a hunter.

For your purposes (melee DPS), champion is your best choice. However, unless there are lots of mobs you're going to find yourself either running around a lot or leaning on your axe waiting for foes to get close enough for you to chop them. A well-played Hunter typically has the foe mostly dead before they get into melee range.

But give it a try! You never know what kind of angst will hit those elves in combat and require you to save their graceful bums.

If you want to meet up with your elf friend after you have left the starter instance (around level 6), you will need to decide if you will be hunting near Thorin's Hall or at the other end of Ered Luin in Celondim or Duilond. You can get a swift ride there from the stablemaster in Frerin's Court... or you can just plan to meet up at around level 10 or so in Gondamon in the center of Ered Luin.

I have been speaking to some work colleagues who have lvl 85 toons and they have also said that a Champion sounds more akin to the type of playing style I would like to experience on this game.
I plan on crafting with the Jewellery skill so I figure I can get ore from mining as well as the gems to polish and use? I am trying to not pre empt based on my old days of WoW so please correct me if I am wrong!

Dwarf, Champion, Thornor, "saving elvish ar$e since 2013" seems to have a nice ring to it (no pun intended!)

Thanks again for all of the input, if anyone has any suggestions as to what to skill up in regarding crafts then please add, the damned elf has gone and selected woodmaking? or something similar so he can make his bows - a little selfish if you as me as he will no doubt want some poncy finery that I can make at some point!

I plan on crafting with the Jewellery skill so I figure I can get ore from mining as well as the gems to polish and use? I am trying to not pre empt based on my old days of WoW so please correct me if I am wrong!

Very smart of you not to be making assumptions! But this time you've got it pretty much right.

To get the Jewelry skill, you will need to take the Tinker vocation. That includes the Prospecting, Jewelcrafting, and Cooking professions. You will use your Prospecting profession to mine and process ore, then use your Jewelcrafting profession to make jewelry and other useful items. For your Cooking profession, there will be some recipes you can make using ingredients purchased from Cooking vendors, but some items are created by the Farming profession. You can find a friendly Farmer, purchase your crops on the Auction House, or take the Farming profession on an alt.

Very smart of you not to be making assumptions! But this time you've got it pretty much right.

To get the Jewelry skill, you will need to take the Tinker vocation. That includes the Prospecting, Jewelcrafting, and Cooking professions. You will use your Prospecting profession to mine and process ore, then use your Jewelcrafting profession to make jewelry and other useful items. For your Cooking profession, there will be some recipes you can make using ingredients purchased from Cooking vendors, but some items are created by the Farming profession. You can find a friendly Farmer, purchase your crops on the Auction House, or take the Farming profession on an alt.

One more handy tip stemming from this one...

You can create a second character just for crafting. All you need to do is play him enough to get out of the starter instance and head to The Shire. Pick the Historian vocation for this character. That will give him the Weaponsmith, Farmer, and Scholar skills.

Farmer - He can sit in The Shire and farm up all the ingredients you need for cooking. This will supply your main character's Cooking profession.

Weaponsmith - Your main character will be gathering ore in order to make jewellery. Many of the tiers have two types of ore, such as Rich Iron and Gold at tier 3. Jeweller needs the gold, and you can give the rich iron ingots to the weaponsmith for levelling. If you keep the weaponsmith skill up, you'll be able to craft very nice weapons for your Champion as well as for your friend the Hunter.

Scholar - You and your friend will constantly accumulate scholar materials (old scrolls, inscriptions, etc.) from loot as you quest. This profession can use them and can make you helpful scrolls for combat and crafting with them.

Essentially, I'm suggesting a crafting only character that you can login and work on when your friend is busy. You don't want to login your main and get ahead, so you do some crafting with this alt character instead.

Thanks everyone for the input.
I had a little blast on the game last night (I can see this becoming a sleep issue) and levelled upto 6 I have the horse lords mount but I need the skill to use it, so far I am in a starting area where there is a bitter rivalry between some longbeards over a desecrated Thorin tomb / vault?

the measly dogs (I mean that in a litteral sense) that populate the area can not stand up to my might as I smite them down.
I will most certainly develop a farming alt and weapon-smith is something that I have had in mind, off the back of my Jewel crafter main.

the damned elf has gone and selected woodmaking? or something similar so he can make his bows

If your elfish fellow chose to be a woodsman, you can and will profit from that decision: The woodsman vocation comprises forester, woodworker, and farmer as professions. While you will legitimately make fun of that elf carving little figures and toothpicks, you can claim his crop and practice your cooking skills. So, that combination would be pretty self-supplying.

I have an issue though now where by when I open the client I get the log on screen, I log in and select to connect to the Landroval server then 'nothing' the window disappears and no game opens, I have checked to see if windows firewall will allow, Turbinelauncher, lotroclient, turbineinvoker which it is.

cant seem to find anything to help on the turbine support section either.. ? I was on it fine for a few moments this morning but when i changed the game resolution i got a black screen and couldnt see a thing, so alt tabbed out and closed the client via the task bar, since then Ive restarted and tried numerous times but still cant get the game to load. strage.

I have an issue though now where by when I open the client I get the log on screen, I log in and select to connect to the Landroval server then 'nothing' the window disappears and no game opens, I have checked to see if windows firewall will allow, Turbinelauncher, lotroclient, turbineinvoker which it is.

cant seem to find anything to help on the turbine support section either.. ? I was on it fine for a few moments this morning but when i changed the game resolution i got a black screen and couldnt see a thing, so alt tabbed out and closed the client via the task bar, since then Ive restarted and tried numerous times but still cant get the game to load. strage.

I can't help you with the tech problem. Peral is my 30-something RK on Landroval. I don't log her on very often but she's ahppy to help. Mail me in game and friend and I'll get in touch. Happy to help heal those pesky epic group things for you!

And the minstrel sang to them……”and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

Just wanted to mention that for a starting player, with a single character available to play, you might want to postpone cooking for awhile. Buying ingredients in order to make components can become costly unless you can sell the resulting foods at a profit. I find that the game's economy for edible foods is unstable; items sell for a short time and then the market collapses. Meanwhile you're sitting on 500 Stuffed Cabbages (or whatever).

BTW, when pricing foods, remember to include the farming costs (if you create a farmer toon) and/or the ingredient purchase costs (if you buy ingredients instead). I've seen lots of players post foods for prices that are below total cost because they only included the cook's costs. Ignoring the fact that the Farmer had to buy seed, water, and fertilize. Thereafter he had to ready the crop for use and adding crafting tool repairs. Then their is the cost of posting the items to the AH (if used).

PS: Tech issue: There were several threads related to this, but I think they got summarized and merged together - without leaving a search trail. I cannot recall if this required switching the game's video to DirectX9 or not. But there is an .INI file (text) in your .../Documents/Lord of the Rings Online/... folder with all of your game settings. Make a back-up first, of course. You might try searching on the term "black screen" or "stuck at sign-in".

I have an issue though now where by when I open the client I get the log on screen, I log in and select to connect to the Landroval server then 'nothing' the window disappears and no game opens, I have checked to see if windows firewall will allow, Turbinelauncher, lotroclient, turbineinvoker which it is.

Your problem pretty much sounds like the fifth point in this thread. (I guess that's the one AccessDenied mentioned?) Still, you seem to have tried all the solutions proposed there. If your problems persist, I'd contact customer support.

If I may offer a suggestion as to crafting, while you and your poncy Elf-friend (I say this without malice as most of my toons are poncy Elves) are going through the early levels, you may want to hold off on farming and cooking. Relatively significant costs aside, crafting in this game gives you both crafting xp *and* character xp. You could both easily outlevel the early areas since farming and cooking are the easiest and quickest way to acquire xp. When it only takes a few hundred xp to go through a whole level, it adds up very quickly. If questing on-level is important to you, concentrating on mining, wood chopping, whittling and jewel-crafting will garner xp much more slowly.

I play on Landroval as well, so feel free to send me a /tell in-game with any questions! Look for Caramiriel, Caradwin or Caramirel.

the connection issue is resolved, (man i feel i just had a crash course in how to make this game work).

It was caused by changing a simple setting on the graphics card that 'made' it run LOTRO on by default rather than letting the system 'choose' to use it if it felt it needed to rather than the onboard Intel 4000 gfx that came with the machine. Once i had unchecked that little box the game booted up first time no issues, I have since tweaked a few things in the card settings in other area to ensure it is infact using the dedicated gfx card and not the onboard one and Voilà.

Game itself I have added a few of you above that have said your happy for me to do so, and I expect you shall be hearing the pitter patter or the large dwarven boots bearing down on the low level mobs soon!

...I am set to make a Dwarven toon as a friend has made a Elf (although why I have no idea the pointy ears are only good for getting in the way of my axe). I think we can work through our racial differences and achieve much together, but due to the pointy ears jumping in feet first and creating a hunter class toon I am left with the decision of what class I will go that will cover up his shortfalls and basically keep the little laddie breathing...

On a month from now pointy ears is cool geared & surounded by hot elf maidens (1 LM & 1 RK) & the mini sing odes to his adventures. While the sweaty dwarf champ look from far away & curse the luck of the pointy ears hunter. Be nice with your friend & both will share together some beers & the company of those maidens. Have fun with your new champ!

Why would a dwarf want to hang with reedy elf-women who don't even have any beards to hang onto? If he's not careful, he might snap one in half with an ill-timed guffaw.

All right i got the idea! The item to share might be some short beared beer bellied deep voice dudes, or your Moria got if you please. Thats better for me, cause ill keep pointy ears to myself alone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26i4OI5ZBs0